Challenges of recognizing rivers as legal persons under Iranian legal system

Abstract

In this article, the challenges of identifying rivers as a legal entity in Iran's legal system have been explored, with the aim of creating a context for the protection of rivers, with an emphasis on Imami jurisprudence and Iranian law. The main challenge that motivated this research is the special situation Iran's rivers are facing, which include water scarcity and human encroachment on the river's boundaries. The main question is whether it is possible for rivers to be recognized as legal entities in Iran's legal system so that they can be more widely supported with the help of this method, and what will be the challenges of accepting this point of view in Iranian law? Regarding this challenge, there has been no research background in Iran so far, so the necessity of investigation doubles. In this research, with the descriptive-analytical method, this achievement was achieved that although the social, territorial and critical status of the rivers make this theory acceptable, but there are challenges in this direction that it is possible to accept. This view makes it difficult in Iran's law, including the fact that rivers in Iran's lawThey cannot have rights and obligations, and the mechanism of "enforcement of rights" by rivers is not provided in Iranian laws. The acceptance of rivers as a legal entity requires the strengthening and expansion of theoretical foundations, such as the ability to remove the human-centered nature of current laws, the identification of rights for objects such as rivers, the conceptual development and validity of a legal entity, the feasibility of the independence of rivers.

Keywords

• river
• legal person
• river protection
• public properties
• environment